Recently, the use of a wireless LAN (local area network) has expanded rapidly thanks to its convenience of requiring no connection cable. Thus, as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 8-107369 (1996), the wireless LAN attracts wide attention not only for its use as a so-called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) connection, but its use as an audio and video transmission interface. Meanwhile, at present, the frequency used in the wireless LAN is shifting from a 2.4 GHz-band to a 5 GHz-band which enables higher-capacity transmission.
Hereinafter, conventional terminal equipment provided with a wireless interface is described with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6. FIG. 5 is a schematic fragmentary side sectional view of the conventional terminal equipment provided with the wireless interface and FIG. 6 is a fragmentary perspective view of a rear portion of the conventional terminal equipment of FIG. 5. In FIGS. 5 and 6, the conventional terminal equipment includes a wireless module 10, a printed circuit board 4 and a housing 5 having a rear panel formed with a slot 9 for fitting the wireless module 10 thereinto. The wireless module 10 further includes a wireless module body 1, a communication means such as a built-in antenna 2 which is provided at one end portion of the wireless module body 1 so as to transmit and receive radio signals to and from a wireless network to be connected to the terminal equipment and a Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) connector 3 which is provided at the other end portion of the wireless module body 1 so as to be connected to the terminal equipment when the wireless module 10 has been fitted into the slot 9 of the housing 5. As shown in FIG. 6, when the wireless module 10 has been fitted into the slot 9 of the rear panel of the housing 5, the built-in antenna 2 of the wireless module 10 is projected out of the slot 9 on a rear face of the housing 5.
The operation of the conventional terminal equipment provided with the wireless interface, which has the above described arrangement, is now described. A modulated wave transmitted from the wireless network to be connected to the terminal equipment is received by the built-in antenna 2 provided on the wireless module 10 and is converted into a baseband signal after its demodulation in the wireless module 10. Thereafter, via the PCMCIA connector 3 provided on the printed circuit board 4 of the terminal equipment, the baseband signal is subjected to processing based on a predetermined protocol by a signal processing circuit formed on the printed circuit board 4 of the terminal equipment and is converted into desired digital data. At the time of transmission from the terminal equipment to the wireless network, the operation is performed in the reverse sequence of the above-mentioned one.
However, in the conventional terminal equipment referred to above, since the wireless module 10 is fitted into the slot 9 of the rear panel of the housing 5 of the terminal equipment, transmission and reception radio waves are likely to be intercepted by the housing 5 when the terminal equipment performs transmission and reception with the wireless network. Meanwhile, the conventional terminal equipment has disadvantages in that since the increase in gain of the built-in antenna 2 and the transmission power of the wireless module 10 are limited by the physical and electrical restraints of the PCMCIA interface, it is difficult to secure communication quality and extend a radio signal reach distance between the terminal equipment and the wireless network.